Wiring for Water Heater

glenney18 · #1 IP: 75.68.241.222 August 8th, 2007, 02:13 PM

Do I need to do anything special in order to hook up a 120v water heater element or can I just plug it into the wall?

junkcollector · #2 IP: 64.83.225.185 August 8th, 2007, 02:30 PM

Can you provide a little more information on what exactly you are tying to do?

**joed** · #3 IP: 24.36.91.63 August 8th, 2007, 04:41 PM

Depends on the wattage. If it is 1500 watts and the receptacle is dedicated to the water heater you can just plug it in safely. Not sure if there is some NEC code requiring water heaters to be hardwired though.

glenney18 · #4 IP: 75.68.241.222 August 9th, 2007, 12:35 PM

I'm constructing a homebrewery and want to use an electric water heater element to heat up 10-15 gallons of water to 200 degrees F. I'd like to just wire a chord to the end of one or two 120v elements so as to be able to plug them into a normal outlet.

What wattage would you recommend and should I use one or two elements?

My plan is to just wire the two elements in parrallel to a standard chord to plug into a standard household outlet. Is this doable?

**joed** · #5 IP: 207.35.6.2 August 9th, 2007, 01:11 PM

For a 15 amp circuit you should not go over 1800 watts total for the elements if yu have nothing else on the circuit. That is the limit of a a15 amp circuit. I see no reason not to use a plug in cord for this appliction.